Hi, here are the first few sports (mountain biking) shots I took with my new camera and lens.

I can now see why people pay such a lot more for 'fast glass'... with lots of cloud cover and low light in the trees, i found the conditions challanging. I'm not happy with any of them, but i'm just impatient with the learning curve I'm on.

I mainly kept it on Sports mode to concentrate on composition and keeping the subject in focus.

Yeah, light and (shutter)speed are the obvious challenges with this sport.
Tried to up the ISO to 800 or even 1600? I'd assume that the little graininess that this adds is not detrimental to the impression of this "dirt"-sport...

hi all,
well, after getting my new 70-200 f4 and a photo backpack, I was keen to grab my kit & head out again to shoot my favourite action which is mountain biking. here are a couple of a friend riding in Tokai which is a forest on the southern outskirts of Cape Town:

Great shots Roland - and as David and Thomas say, the last one looks really good because of the blurring - giving an impression of motion.

It's a great technique to use a slower shutter speed and follow the action as you press the shutter release button, whether it's racehorses, motorsports, airshows or as you've shown, mountain biking...

Hi! I am new to photography, but I am enjoying it very much. I wonder if you can help me I have become very frustrated with trying to take action/sports shots of my sons playing basketball (and later it will be soccer). I have been using the Nikon D40 on the sport mode, but as the boys are running by or are turning to shoot I am very lucky if I get a shot that I can see/read. I have also tried using the automatic mode, but I am not sure that is any better. Any ideas? Please remember I am still a novice.

Try selecting Tv (shutter priority) mode. This allows you to select the shutter speed - the camera sets everything else. If you want to completely freeze the action try a shutter speed of 1/250 or 1/500 sec.

Experiment as much as you can to find what's right for the situation. Try different shutter speeds - see what works best.

You will find that you get to know the camera much better and increase your creativity by using the semi-automatic modes (shutter and aperture priority) instead of fully automatic. But of course, when you don't need to change your shutter speed or aperture you can put the camera back in auto and shoot away.